Table of Contents
The word for today is…
boilerplate (noun) – 1. Steel in the form of flat plates used in making steam boilers.
2. Journalistic material, such as syndicated features, made available by agencies in a form that is already typeset, originally in plate form, for easy incorporation into publications such as newspapers.
3. Hackneyed or conventional language, usually expressing a generally accepted viewpoint).
4. Standardized or set language that is meant to be used repeatedly, often in organisational publications or legal documents.
5. Sports Snow having a hard icy crust on its surface.
Source : The Free Dictionary
Etymology : In the days before computers, small, local newspapers around the U.S. relied heavily on feature stories, editorials, and other printed material supplied by large publishing syndicates. The syndicates delivered that copy on metal plates with the type already in place so the local papers wouldn’t have to set it. Printers apparently dubbed those syndicated plates “boiler plates” because of their resemblance to the plating used in making steam boilers. Soon boilerplate came to refer to the printed material on the plates as well as to the plates themselves. Because boilerplate stories were more often filler than hard news, the word acquired negative connotations and gained another sense widely used today, such as “hackneyed or unoriginal writing.”
